Yessss. I've never heard of Sarah, but now I want to check out her blog. I've had a fun past 4 years at a small, private Christian liberal arts university, add a women's studies minor (the school didn't offer it as a major). The more I learned about women and Christianity, the more I felt challenged to evangelize Christian feminism to the people around me. I'm so happy to be versed enough that I can throw down with verses and precedent to dismantle people's misconceptions (about the Bible being anti-feminist and not egalitarian). It's just still so hard, especially to have school friends who are brilliant and strong and beautiful but go to Mars Hill and who buy into complementarianism.

I grew up going to an egalitarian church and didn't even realize that there were Protestant churches that DIDN'T allow women pastors until very late.

@j-i-a We used to have reindeer sausage at my grandparent's house that a relative hand-made for us, but he unfortunately has passed away. It was good though! Good enough that I could get over the guilt of eating Rudolph.

Oh man, so many things. First off, props to Natalie for being open and willing to share about her experience.

I have struggled so much with Mormonism, and have studied it a lot. I grew up in a town that had a not insignificant Mormon population; my prom date was Mormon. It's tough because as a sociologist, and using that definition, Mormonism is a cult/"
new religious order".

I grew up in a Protestant church (Presbyterian) and went to a private Christian college (technically Free Methodist, but while there were required religious-based academic courses, they did not necessarily conform to Free Methodist doctrine). As a feminist (and a liberal), I've definitely encountered my fair share of difficult and frustrating people and situations, and I fully do not deny that there are factions of Protestantism that has equally as disturbing and anti-woman beliefs as LDS. See: complementarianism, Mark Driscoll (look up his NYTimes interview if you want a good profile) and Mars Hill Church (which is literally right across the canal from my uni). And I also completely understand how powerful a force socialization is, especially in a more insulated group like the LDS church.

I get the desire for religious community, and I don't think it's a negative thing. I just wish that there could be more of a middle ground for people in the LDS church but struggling with their doctrines and feminism. Actually, I think liberal Protestantism is a perfectly viable middle ground, but unfortunately I think the people who get disillusioned with the LDS church, they leave but are disillusioned with all similar (actual) religious orders that they don't consider the shift.

@lawsome30 No professional clergy, but for the priesthood, which is only open to dudes. Plus the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the President of the Quorum and the Church President. And only dudes can receive "revelation", which is the bunkest of bunk to me.

@supernintendochalmers A "Master Face" is the person to whom all potential face characters are measured against. In order to keep the "show"/illusion as alive as possible (considering there are, say, 20 people who play all the various iterations of Belle across WDW and they don't look exactly the same), they try to cast ladies (or dudes) with similar facial features/structures. So while you might look exactly like Cinderella from the cartoon, unless you also match the facial characteristics of the current Master Face Cinderella, you probably won't get to put on that glass slipper.

They also have "Media" versions of face characters; they're the ones who appear as that character in all public media appearances. I just met a guy last week who worked in merchandise at Pixar Place (at Hollywood Studios) whose girlfriend was the Media Merida (say that 5 times fast); she is the one you see as Merida at her recent princess coronation. (He also said that she played Cinderella, Rapunzel, Aurora and a couple more princesses, so there's that).

Interesting fact: at the moment, only 2 of the ladies currently "friends with" Jasmine at WDW are non-white.

I will say that the time I say "Voyage" the Ariel was a pretty retched singer, and she only had like 1.5 songs. Girlfriend needed a break, stat.

@MilesofMountains Eh, I don't know. I agree with the above commenter that Maria never had "designs" on Georg. In fact, I think the most heinous thing the Baroness did was her whole "omg the captain's totally in love with you" comments to Maria at the end of Act 1. And that was absolutely calculated, because bitch knew it would cause M to freak out and flee.

Barb, this is making me want to go re-watch my favorite movie of all time.